


♔five kisses—

by B_lackie



Category: Borderlands, borderlands 2 - Fandom
Genre: Canonical Character Death, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-27
Updated: 2015-01-27
Packaged: 2018-03-09 06:21:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,395
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3239534
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/B_lackie/pseuds/B_lackie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Five kisses along the way.</p>
            </blockquote>





	♔five kisses—

**Author's Note:**

> Not beta'd and english isn't first language.  
> Written as a drabble for my tumblr rp account xslabking, gift for truxicanfalconer.

**♔i♔**  
                                                                                                            ( _it was just a kiss_ )

It all had started with a dare. A dare— _simple and unassuming_ —with Lilith’s good humor hovering over the silence that followed those tauntingly playful words. Roland had only snorted, burying himself once more into his beer to chase the buzz their drunken antics post such a successful mission had caused. Another piece of the vault key down, another villainous face on Pandora dead, wasn’t that all but a cause for celebration? Brick shot the red-headed siren a bemused look before he leaned to claim the drunken Mordecai's immobile, unsuspecting lips with his own. There no magic, no sudden spark of want and knowing and need, and despite Lil’s whoop and Ro’s chuckle and their own spluttered intermingled laughs as they broke apart all he could really recognize through the alcoholic haze in his own mind was the taste of smoke and wildness that hovered in chaotic remnants from it on his own lips, easily chased away with another gulp of the wretched booze they had picked up along the way.

**♔ii♔**  
                                                                                                            ( _it was just a kiss_ )

It always wondered the berserker why the hunter went off on his own—distanced and separated himself so often from the other three vault hunters. There were minutes— _seconds_ —when he was treated to the sight of him actually relaxing from time to time. The smirk of wicked humor and delight when he came out ahead in a fight, the expression of simple sweet satisfaction at the whump of sniper fire and the explosion of gristle and gore that bespoke the end of whoever had been in his line of sight. Seeing him finally come back to the makeshift campfire, Ro and Lil asleep with no one left after but the two of them, he couldn’t help but to comment towards the smaller man. **“Ya look lonely.”** Jerking a chin towards the outcropping where the other had been standing before left him momentarily speechless before he shrugged and said, **_“I’m not.”_** Kissing him that second time had taken a step (only one) and a short lean—brief but memorable before they both turned away to settle themselves for sleep by their friends. He’d tasted like fire and stardust then, haunting through dreams but long forgotten by morning at the start of the long trek back to Tannis.

**♔iii♔**  
                                                                                                            ( _it was just a kiss_ )

Shep’s blood still dripped from Brick’s hands, his fingers, as he stood by the Fast Travel station. _You cannot stay here_ , Ro had said. _You get too dangerous, too much of a threat, and I’m sorry—I must keep the safety of the good people here in Sanctuary in mind._ Anger had bloomed in his chest then but the leader of the Crimson Raiders was his friend. He couldn’t take it out on him when he knew that later he may understand that choice, leaving him with an important note and telling him to give Mordy and Lil his goodbyes. It took a shout of his name to lure his attention from the station before him where he’d been keying in coordinates, glancing back over his shoulder towards his out of breath companion as he lurched into Pierce Station. Although he couldn’t see his eyes— _he never could see his eyes behind those goggles_ —rage contorted his face as one of his hands opened and closed into a fist spasmodically, shoulders shaking. The distance between them closed as lips met, a big hand holding the back of his neck and leaving the crimson of a traitor behind in its way before they parted and he was gone—gone away with nothing but a _catch ya later, Mordy_ left to give. The taste of copper and blood lingered heavily behind that time, of vengeful wrath, and unlike the other times it remained with him through bloody days and long and empty nights without his friends as he took Sledge’s hammer and built up an empire of slabs.

**♔iv♔**  
                                                                                                            ( _it was just a kiss_ )

Reconciliations were a breath of fresh air—long needed and wanted—as the Slab King caught back up with his friends. Forgiveness for Roland had been easy as he’d done so long before and the punch to his shoulder from Lilith had been received well… even if the woman had earned herself a massive hug in return for it. The time was only sullied by the news of loss—Bloodwing was gone, life lost and destroyed by Handsome Jack throughout their efforts to wipe Hyperion out, and the burden of loss lodged deep in his chest. When he could extract himself from the other two older he searched through HQ, turning to the roof only when he could find neither hide nor hair of Mordecai anywhere. It was there when he finally found him, curled into a little ball with his pack pressed against one of the pylons staring vacantly off into space. It was one of the few times he’d seen the other man without his goggles before— _barriers stripped away_ —but he said nothing as he wrapped large arms around him and instead drew him close. The kiss to his lips then was brief (chaste) before they were moved and were pressed to the top of the older man’s head, contented to hold him and not comment on the feeling of moisture pressed against his neck where his face remained buried. A tang of salt and tears and an unrelenting burning pain hovered there, tip-toeing through his senses from that brief contact, but while time would not cover the scars he knew it would ease the grief Mordecai felt and eventually, one day, replace it with hope. And he would be there— _oh, he would be there_.

**♔v♔**  
                                                                                                            ( _it was just a kiss_ )

Screams and weapon fire and the bubbled roar of the molten lava looming below were a canopy of sound through Hero’s Pass. The berserker gritted his teeth as a snarl— _savage and low_ —erupted from his lungs, jerking his bulk to the right to bodily shoulder the war loader directly off the treacherous, unprotected edge into that seething lake of death below. The hunter’s shouts broke his concentration enough where he only could shoot a quick glance towards the rapidly progressing younger vault hunters’ way, smiling before he used one of the other loaders closing in a virtual springboard to reach the destabilized Hyperion drop barge. **“Mordecai! I'm comin!”** The first of the orbital strike nearly knocked him askew as it barely missed, the hunk of machinery shuddering almost violently and tipping dangerously to the point his weight staggered himself sideways towards the ledge into nothingness, but he jerked himself forward and inside where he could see his companion fighting wildly with the controls. He’d just reached him when the rest of the Moon Blitz directly hit, explosions and wrenching steel filling his ears, heat and light searing across his vision as their eyes lock and all thoughts but those shared between them of the past are driven from his mind as their arms draw each other close. The drop barge shudders and groans as it tips almost fully sideways and plummets into the lava, light and pain reaching its pinnacle and wrapping across both men, lips together in an eternal corona of [lingering goodbyes](.).

**♔fin♔**  
                                                                                                            ( _it was just a kiss_ )

A slight, wavering tremble against him drew Brick’s attention from the map that hovered in the air before them all, excitement battling the exhaustion and lingering pain from his many injuries. Mordecai was no better off—the two men having to half-lean against one another in the effort to even keep themselves upright at this point, but they had managed to scramble out of the doomed drop barge and onto safer ground before they were incinerated from the molten lava. Handsome Jack’s lifeless body lay close by however remained ultimately ignored.. instead his eyes briefly landing on the smirking, freed Lilith and the victorious younger group of vault hunters (wishing fervently that Roland could be there to see this victory too), drifting to the remains of the Warrior, finally down to the wounded man leaning against his side. They were both alive and everything— _everything had only just begun_.

                                                                                     **He hadn't even known he was falling until it was far too late.**  
 **But it had been worth the fall all along.**


End file.
